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Since the 1980s New Zealand has pursued neo-classical or market-based policies with a particular fervour. Market-based options are seen by resource management decision makers as essential frameworks for efficiently allocating resources, an approach that continues to support the view of the inherent dominance of Western knowledge. This is particularly concerning, given that Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand), have an important role to play in New Zealand resource management and perceive their own knowledge systems have been marginalised. The primary goal of this thesis is to explore the validity of welfare economics when seeking to measure quantitatively Mātauranga Māori or Māori views of the environment through the contingent valuation method. A contingent valuation study is carried out using three separate samples drawn from the general Māori population in Auckland city, a hāpu/sub-tribe indigenous to the Auckland isthmus, and drivers of motor vehicles in Auckland city. Data collection modes include a postal survey and face-to-face interviews. This thesis challenges the validity of political-legal ethnicity constructs to measure Mātauranga Māori. The search for a central tendency will lead to biased, misleading and inaccurate results. The thesis also challenges the validity of contingent valuation to produce true economic measures and to measure and identify Mātauranga Māori. Despite advances in analytical techniques, economic efficiency measures are always deficient, given the difficulty of capturing and anticipating all impacts and valuing them appropriately. Mātauranga Māori is derived from a Māori epistemology and should be considered or analysed with primary reference to this body of knowledge. Economic analysis is only one important cog in the machinery of resource management policy. Given that an economist's contribution to local and regional resource management is most valuable when focusing on the economic efficiency of the proposed resource allocation, it is appropriate that other perspectives such as Mātauranga Māori be considered.

In this dissertation, I discuss two distributive principles in moral philosophy: Derek Parfit's Prioritarianism and Egalitarianism. I attempt to defend a version of Egalitarianism, which I call Weighted Egalitarianism. Although Parfit claims that Egalitarianism is subject to what he calls the Levelling Down Objection, I show (a) that my proposed Weighted Egalitarianism is not subject to the Objection, and (b) that it gives priority to the worse off people. The real difference between the two principles lies in how the weight of each person's well-being is determined. Prioritarianism assumes that there is a moral scale of the goodness of well-being, independently of distributions of people's well-being. I raise two objections to this claim: firstly, it is hard to believe that the choice of the level of well-being affects our distributive judgement; secondly, it is hard to believe that there is such a moral scale independently of distributions of people's well-being. On the other hand, Weighted Egalitarianism claims that the weight is given by the rank order position of the person in the ranking by well-being level. This means that, in Weighted Egalitarianism, the goodness of a distribution is an increasing, linear function of people's well-being. Weighted Egalitarianism is not affected by the choice of the level of people's well-being. Nor does it require require the moral scale of the goodness of well-being independently of distributions of people's well-being. Leximin, which might be a version of Prioritarianism, avoids my objections. But it is hard to support Leximin, because it rules out the trade off between the better off and the worse off. I conclude that Weighted Egalitarianism is more acceptable than Prioritarianism.

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This thesis examines and compares the nature, magnitude and movement in the inequality of income and expenditure of Australian households from 1975-76 to 1998-99 and Canadian households from 1978 to 1992. The inequality of welfare impacts on an individual’s feelings of belonging and participation in society and the level of social division within it. It may have such tangible effects as political unrest and increased crime. This raises the issue of, what is happening to the inequality of welfare and how to measure household welfare and inequality? The thesis considers the normative judgements made in measuring the inequality, desirable properties of inequality indices and the appropriate variable to represent household welfare. It finds in favour of expenditure as a more appropriate measure of a household’s living standards than income and that equivalence scales and cost of living indices should be used to account for variation in household composition and prices. The majority of past studies of Australian and Canadian inequality report an increase in income inequality throughout the latter half of the 20th century. However, the timing and size of increase is dependent upon the inequality indices, equivalence scales and sample selection used in each study. While many studies have focussed on the distribution of income, few have considered the inequality of expenditure or the explicit role of prices in inequality movements via a cost of living index. The thesis specifies a demographically extended complete demand system and uses household survey and price data to obtain estimates of its parameters to construct and compare alternate equivalence scales and demographically varying cost of living indices. The independence of the equivalence scale to reference utility was found not to hold suggesting that welfare comparisons between households of varying demographic types will be dependent on the specification of the household cost function. While the estimated price elasticities vary significantly across households, prices of commodity groups have moved such that the change in the cost of living over time is relatively uniform across households. The thesis finds that the real adult equivalent disposable income inequality of households has been rising in Australia consistently from 1975-76 to 1998-99, while real adult equivalent expenditure inequality recorded a fall over the period as a whole. In contrast, the inequality of Canadian household real adult equivalent disposable income and expenditure, have moved together, rising from 1978 to 1986 before falling in 1992. Australia has a higher magnitude of inequality in the distribution of household equivalent expenditure compared to Canada. The decline in the inequality of accommodation expenditure has been significant for Australia and Canada in offsetting the rise in inequality of expenditure on food and alcohol and tobacco. The rise in wage inequality and to a lesser extent investment income inequality, have largely accounted for the rise in gross income inequality in both countries. The thesis finds that the movement in Australian inequality is not overly sensitive to equivalence scale specification, although Engel, OECD and per capita scaled welfare tend to exaggerate the movement when compared to demand system based scales. In Canada from 1982 to 1986 changes in household composition resulted in significant difference in the movement of inequality estimates for different equivalence scales. The Engel, OECD and per capita based estimates showed a fall in inequality in contrast to the demand system based scales. The magnitude and the movement in inequality for both countries are insensitive to the specification of price indices. Excluding observations from the original sample can have extreme consequences on the reported magnitude and trend in inequality. By exploiting the additive decomposability property of inequality, the employment status and education level of the household head for Australia and Canada respectively, were found to have a large effect on the magnitude and movement in inequality. Age of the household head and the demographic type of the household were found to explain less than a sixth of the magnitude and trend in household inequality for both Australia and Canada. To summarise, this thesis makes the following contributions: Methodological i) It considers the normative judgements made in measuring inequality, the desirable properties of inequality indices and the appropriate variable to use to represent household welfare. ii) It accounts for differences amongst the demographic composition of households by using equivalence scales based upon an explicitly defined demographic extended demand system. iii) It accounts for price movements by developing a cost of living index based upon an explicitly defined demographic household cost function and complete demand system. Empirical i) Real adult equivalent disposable income inequality of households has been rising in Australia consistently from 1975-76 to 1998-99, while real adult equivalent expenditure inequality recorded a fall over the period as a whole. ii) In contrast Canadian household real adult equivalent disposable income and expenditure inequality have moved together, rising from 1978 to 1986 before falling in 1992. iii) The movement in Australian and Canadian inequality is not overly sensitive to different demand system based scales but Engel, OECD and per capita scaled estimates tend to exaggerate the movement of Australian inequality and report movements in Canadian inequality from 1982-1986 reverse to the demand system based scales. iv) The magnitude and the movement in inequality for both countries are not very sensitive to the specification of price indices. However there is evidence that regional price movements in Canada have helped to offset inequality, while allowing for differing price impacts across households using the CLI reduces this effect. For Australia price movements appear to have reduced the fall in expenditure inequality and increased the rise in income inequality slightly. v) Excluding observations from the original sample can have extreme consequences on the reported magnitude and trend in inequality. vi) Employment status and education level of the household head for Australia and Canada respectively, were found to have a large effect on the magnitude and movement in inequality. Greater than, what could be explained by decomposing by age of the household head or the demographic type of the household.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Mathematics)) - Rhodes University, 2008. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Mathematics.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-161).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 98 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-98).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / Vita. Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 239-253). Also available on the Internet.